The biggest test yet confirmed four-day workweek that makes employees happy
The biggest study of a four-day workweek includes 141 companies, 90 percent retains arrangement at the end of the six-month experiment
Move a week of work week without losing the pay employees more happy, healthier and higher, according to largest study of such intervention so farconsists of six countries. Research shows a six-month attempt to work four days a week deduction Buroutfurther satisfaction at work and improved mental health and physical.
The authors think of study when a week of week work will increase employees’ Jam. “If workers want to give the same productivity, they can work easily, and their benefit of true author Wen Fan, a sociologist of the Boston Colleguse.” However, the staff staff level has not found.
The study was published July 21 of Natural behavior of man.
In support of science journalism
If you enjoy this article, think about supporting our winning journalism in Subscribe. By purchasing a subscription you helped to ensure the future of influential stories about the discoveries and ideas that make our world today.
Pandemic chaos
Level to Employee and Burnout stress rises during Covid-19 PandemicLeading many workers to quit their jobs, the authors notice. The result large numbers unfinished positions in some labor markets.
To see if shorter weeks may be the medicine for bad behavior, researchers have launched a study of 2,896 individuals in 141 companies in Australia, Canada, Ireland.
Before turning the transfer of time reduction, each company picking overhaul has been given eight weeks of waste hours such as wasted hours of waste time. Two weeks before the start of the test, each employee responds in a series of questions to evaluate their benefit, including, “you fail your work?” and “How do you rate your mental health?” After six months of the new schedule, they re-revised the same questions.
Overall, workers who have been heard are satisfied with their job performance and reported better mental health after six months a weekend week than before it.
Winners and lost?
A common criticism of the four-day working week is that employees cannot make the same output in four days as five. The study does not analyze the productivity of the company, but it offers an explanation of how workers can be more efficient in fewer hours. “If people are better set up, make a lot of mistakes and faster,” said Peter Gomes, an economist in Birkbeck University of London. But gomes want to see more analysis of productivity effects.
Fanns are asked for more than 90% of companies decided to keep four-day working week after trying, without worrying about a drop in profit.
The authors also looked at whether positive effects in shorter work weeks go to the chance of missing the system of innovation. They collected data after workers spending 12 months after the start of the trial and found that good repairs.
But because companies sign up for a volunteer test, the results can overload the actual effect of the four-day working week with a range of companies. And because all results are self-reported, employees may have expanded the benefits of hope to continue their further day. The authors call for random studies to try the design.
This article has been copied with permission and first published On July 21, 2025.
